"Intelligent"

 

Property of Stormberry

I found a publication on some social platform (Instagram? Tumblr? One of those, I guess) about how people saw you. The point of the publication was to show that no matter what you do, people won't see you the same way. Some see you as nice, others as mean. The point was also to raise awareness about how you see yourself, and how you must build your self image based on your how you see yourself, and not on how others perceive you.

This got me thinking, and I quickly realized that most people see me the same way, or would describe me with the same word: "intelligent". Does this mean I'm intelligent?

No, not at all. As a matter of fact, I'm sure that most people who would lable me with that word don't even know whether I'm intelligent or not, but this is an easy way to define someone that seems to fall out of the norm (what they consider the norm) and act in a way that doesn't follow what they are used to. From my perspective, "intelligent" is what most people say of those they can't understand, seem strange, but not so strange as to lable them "crazy". I'm a curious person, and long ago I've learned not to take compliments on their face value (except when there's more to gain from leaving people to be, than from researching the mind of the person), and rather question them.

If you are called "beautiful", or "good", mont people find it easy to tell you why they call you so. Your eyes are pretty, your smile is pretty, your hair is so pretty... those are the usual ones. Or, you are so good to children, you are so helpful, you are so selfless... and so on. But what do they say when asked why they think you are "intelligent"? The usual answers show that they don't really kow if you are really intelligent, but you seem to check the boxes of an intelligent person. "Intelligent" can be fulfilled with having lots of books (even if you haven't read them, or if all of them are collections of jokes... for instance), or if you are seen reading (regardless of the kind of book you are reading or whether you understand what you are reading), if you have at least one college degree, if you have a good job or if you are perceived as successful. But those that mean that you are intelligent?

Not at all.

Many people - at least in Latin America - describe corrupt, manipulative people as "intelligent" because they perceive these people of "being able to get away with it". Does that mean that they are intelligent?No necesarily.

I think being intelligent means being able to absorb knowledge and apply it. In this sense, most people are intelligent, though not everybody is intelligent the same way or in the same area. However, I also think that intelligence is a long run process, not a sort of flawed knowledge that depends on chance, but the sort of knowledge that has a solid ground, and can adapt in a sure way. Thus, I find intelligent a crafts-person or farmer who learns their job, can do it with knowledge, and if something changes, they can find where the change happened, and work towards adapting their knowledge to it, and add that new information to it. A manipulative person or a corrupt person depend on certain conditions to remain stable in order to keep their schemes. If these fall, they find it harder to get back on their previous position. Their "cunning" has a shaky basis, so, it's a gamble, not real intelligence.

At the same time, the external signs upon which intelligence is judged (by those who do not have the tools to really gauge intelligence, or don't hav the disposition to do so), ca be copied by anyone, even people who are not intelligent, but want to look intelligent (like, say, a con artist). Often, people think someone is intelligent if they speak with self confidence about something don't understand well, or say a lot of things that make no sense clearly, but have a confident attitude while speaking. It doesn't mean they are intelligent, but they seem to be.

The word "intelligent" and the true value behind it has lost lots of its meaning, and has become a blank lable used both to compliment those you have nothing evident to compliment them about, to pretend your compliment is "deeper", but also the perception of intelligence is used to misguide people. And the reason is that people has stopped really seeing intelligence, and no longer care to really know what intelligence is. Intelligence takes time to gather, and it doesn't mean it will make you wealthy, successful, happy or able to always right. Intelligent means you will be able both to understand, to see, and to recognize when you don't know something.

No, I'm not intelligent in that regard. I ignore a lot of things I don't know. I may think I know something, but in truth I may not know it. But I am learning. I am a curious person, I like to study, that's what I am.